The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 04.13.13

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.” Samuel Beckett


simpleman (above) by Halo Jones, one of over 20 featured artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery. We know you'll wanna see mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yours right over here and a-way you'll GO

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This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we plied perennial, sharp-edged passions with prurient, primal curiosity; we felt a flower's remorse for a passing bee, perhaps rebuffed; we shed shyness and chivalry to sit Shiva; we bantered the Book value of obsessive screen time, seek society or simmer in solitude; we lurked like a lovelorn lacky when we could been "juggling kittens and laughing and smiling;" we harbored a hound-dog handling, scratching to heal; we witnessed, from a Bates Motel horror room, an unwitting well wisher's narrow escape. Checked in, checked out - check'em out! ~ mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

room 168

dingy door open wide
lights glaring loudly
madness bouncing from boombox
muses floating on confused canvases
repeating over & again
looping
half drunk beer
sweating on night table
keys keeping it company
bedside lamp fueled by cheap bulbs
zapping
eyes snapping to kicked off shoes
posing in corner behind door
half upside down
abused
peeks behind corners
calls for her
echo off bathroom tiles
phone winks its LED eye
sink sitting
blinks high
blinks by
buzzes
tub sits half emptied
water murky with grime
hair slithers on side
unidentified floating object
identified
clothes carelessly clinging
to paper laundromat hangers
favorite hat half twisted
in ugly grimace
staring
back steps
snapshots snapping in mind's eye
madness continues to echo and loop
muses still confused
brushes bruised with hues
beer still half empty
sweating company with keys
lone hair ribbon speaks volumes
of what is now absent
abandoned
back stepping away
snapshots still snapping
capturing the scene
escaping room 168
relieved no one was home
door wide open

closed

- Gianni Sacco

(1 poem added 04.13.13)

editor's note: Love uncertain made certain, love no more; escaped within an inch of its life. - mh

the softest part of you is behind your ears

you grow when i kiss you
squashyou.
your right eye holds a lonely grain of black
outside its iris, fallen
out of the nest.

you face the heater when you sleep
i can see that scab, growing
i can't stop
myself from picking, tearing
peeling away crushed edges moving
onto tender red beneath.

i scratch but you leave marks
it hurts best on my fingers
where i bend reach. i need
to soothe with what burns me
my blood, it pools
in the cracks of my hands
these fingers still somehow rough

you sweetly listen as i rub away.

- Kayla Siobhan

(1 poem added 04.12.13)

editor's note: Maybe not quite the object of affection, but obsession is better than sleeping alone; so happy to be her worry toy. Woof! (We welcome Kayla back to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets - see more of her madness on her reinstated poetry page.) - mh

did you ever notice that staring up at a ceiling fan that’s spinning kinda looks like an above view of you watching someone spinning nunchucks really fast?

These days
are ripped in half
by black and white
memories
of you.

Sometimes
I think about
cutting my lips
off
with a butcher’s knife
so I never have to
feel the constant need
to apologize
to everyone around me
for frowning
all the time.

I feel
peer pressured
into smiling.

All the cool kids
are doing it.

“If all of your friends
rode around
on unicorns
shooting rainbows
outta their asses
while juggling kittens
and laughing
and smiling
would you do it
too?”

No,

but I would
jump off a bridge

and then remind myself
while falling,

Everything
is gonna be
okay...

Everything
is gonna be
okay...

Everything
is gonna be
okay...

What
a beautiful,
last sound,

skull shattering
into ground.

If you clean
my pieces up
with a broom and dustpan
I’ll come back
as a ghost
and say,
Thank you...

Thank you
very much
for cleaning up
after me.

Sorry ‘bout the mess.

You’re
the best, though.

Really...

Rock on.

- Calvero

(added 04.11.13)

editor's note: Hard to tell if unrequited love can be helped by peer pressure. One thing is sure, though, Everything IS gonna be OK! - mh

Art of MiND FuCK

It is now,
The era of can’t
The beggars from saints,
The letters that won’t
But the bats that will.
Don’t hit it!
Just kick it!
Don’t lick it!
Just like it!
Era of the
FACE.
Face the Book, day and night.
Cry all night.
There is no passion
Just pictures of grotesque fashion.
Buy into it
Fall into it
Spend all your life in it
Feel it.
Cry for it!
Live with it.
Become one with IT!
Face your Book,
Book your Face
There is No ending,
This is,
The Art
Of
MiNd
FuCk!

- Sakazaf

(added 04.10.13)

editor's note: Human progress; the perfection and perpetuation of the mind fuck. Might as well face it! - mh

Sitting Shiva in a Hotel Lobby

For a year this image has haunted me.
Over and over I hear on the gramophone
Cohen put in my ear
“Feature this:
On a crowded elevator
a strange woman in a baseball cap
unbuttons your fly.”
That image is on the ceiling every night
as I sit shiva in the lobby
of this small hotel,
a hookah, like a tired cobra,
coiled at my feet,
a shamrock in my buttonhole
dead from the last parade.
Night after night,
I think about this strange woman
as each hour I watch
the doors of the elevator
part and give birth.
I observe each new guest carefully,
hoping the woman in the baseball cap
will tire of the rain and ride up
in the elevator and register.
I want her to sit in the lobby
and talk with us.
We who are guests here forever
have eons to hear
what she has to say.
We have paid our rent in advance.
We can afford to sit here and see.

- Donal Mahoney

(1 poem added 04.09.13)

editor's note: Patiently we await her; hoping we get to first base, wishing she'd make us her shortstop. Most likely, we'll just be left fielder to her left-handed bat. - mh

Vince

who lives upstairs
and smiles slightly when he walks by
makes me tremble
when I see him
and I wonder
what he does
on a lazy Sunday afternoon
and if he eats omelets for breakfast
the way I like them
and Vincent
as I call him sometimes
takes out the trash on Tuesdays
and on Wednesdays he always drives away at 7 pm
perhaps to someone waiting for him
with sweaty hands and bright red lipstick
Vince my beautiful neighbor, once held the elevator
on one of my bad hair days
and he smells so dam good all the time
Vince from apartment 304
doesn’t really know I exist
but I lust for him anyway
and dream him into bed with me
cause I know he’d like my softness
and satin sheets, and snuggling in my white duvet
as we sip fine coffee in the morning...
Vince, who I know so well
would love me
and love running and
love radio head
and my Vince would love guinness beer.

- Elissa Landrigan

(added 04.08.13)

editor's note: Ah, poor man! If he only knew what love awaits... - mh

A Love in Spring

In the smooth blackness
of the sky,
ten thousand stars
sparkle and dance,
every inch of her skin
comes alive,
curiosity hones,
tempts heights of passion
into pools of dazed wonder,
mad, marrow-deep longings
linger, her heart cradles
a new affection.

- Amy Barry

(added 04.07.13)

editor's note: Spring is erotica, perennial porn; flowers, stalks of wheat, your passionate partner. Like bees, we are drawn; to me, to me, to me. - mh

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The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Gettin' Madder By the Minute,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor

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